This post contains frank discussion of Westworld Season 2, Episode 1 “Journey Into Night.” Consider this your first and last spoiler warning.
If you thought Westworld was going to get less complicated in its second season, well, you were mostly right. Though there are still multiple timelines, flashbacks, twists, and glitching, unreliable narrators, HBO’s sci-fi western doesn’t seem as invested this year in pulling the wool over viewers’ eyes. Still, every little bit helps when it comes to unpacking this show and so Vanity Fair will be running a weekly podcast in conjunction with these next ten episodes in order to break down every angle and, perhaps, launch a speculative theory or two. You can subscribe to Still Watching: Westworld here. And listen to the latest episode here:
But if you’re more of a visual learner, then maybe this breakdown of the many callbacks, revelations, and references in “Journey Into Night” will be more your speed. This post will contain spoilers only up through Season 2, Episode 1 so if you’re caught up, you should be in the clear.
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When Are We? Once again we’re operating in two temporalities this season. There’s the present—with Bernard (Jeffrey Wright) on the beach and the Delos operatives trying to figure out what happened in the park. Then there’s the past a.k.a. two weeks ago a.k.a. right where we left off in Season 1. Just as was the case last year, there appears to be a third timeline with Dolores (Evan Rachel Wood) and Arnold (also Wright) having their philosophical tête-à-têtes. That scene, which opens the episode, appears to have been filmed in a different aspect ratio. So at least you can tell when you’re watching the far distant past? It will be in letterbox. For more on where are we, you can go here.
What’s going on with Bernard? Remember how towards the end of last season Ford (Anthony Hopkins) made Bernard shoot himself in the head? Felix (Leonardo Nam) then helpfully patched him up but mentioned ominously that the bullet had grazed Bernard’s “cortical shield.” Whatever that is. When this episode opens on the events immediately after Ford’s death, Bernard already has a distressing tremor in his hand. Then he hits his head and some goo starts oozing out of his ear. Never a good sign. We learn later that he is experiencing a “critical corruption” which may result in “time slippage” and “ephasia.” In other words, Bernard is our reliable, brain damaged narrator for the season. Welcome, Bernard. Just like Dolores last year, he’ll have some trouble knowing when and where he is at any given moment.
In an interview with Entertainment Weekly last year, series creator Jonathan Nolan explained:
[The hosts’] construction and their power source is something we’re really going to get into during Season 2. They’re closer to biological than they are to mechanical, but they don’t suffer brain death the same way we do. They’re largely indistinguishable from human beings, but their brains don’t require oxygen — which opens up interesting possibilities. Their brains are not as fragile as ours. On one hand, their cognition is controllable and malleable, but on a structural level they can’t be killed in the same way you and I can. There are advantages and disadvantages to being a host. Season 2 we’ll be exploring more the nuts and bolts of what they are — as the hosts themselves are trying to understand.
Either way, Bernard has a ticking clock on his condition: “O.72 hours” until all his systems will shut down. Not only that, but he has to hide the fact that he’s a host from the humans he’s stuck with. You saw what happened to that poor stable boy. Can Bernard find some help—perhaps Elsie (Shannon Woodward)—in the time remaining? Well, we know he did. He’s operating fairly well, if a little fuzzily, on that beach two weeks in the future.
Where is Abernathy? Charlotte (Tessa Thompson) explains that in order to get rescued by Delos, she and Bernard are going to have to find the Host she uploaded some information into at the end of last season. That Host is, of course, Peter Abernathy (Louis Herthum), a.k.a. Dolores’s glitching dad. For more information on why he’s so important—and why they were swabbing that one host’s pubes—you can go here.
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As for Abernathy, well, where is he?
Honestly he could be anywhere but what’s intriguing is that in Season 1 Abernathy told Ford that Dolores was…
